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Palin was the first female and youngest governor to be elected in Alaska, which is tied for the second most powerful governorship in the United States, according to Thad Beyle, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina.
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Budgeting and Spending

Palin cut state spending between 2007 and 2010 by 9.5% while also reducing federal earmark requests by more than 80% during her tenure. She used her line-item veto to cut more than a quarter billion in superfluous spending in both 2007 and 2008. In 2009, she instituted a temporary hiring freeze, while at the same time reducing spending by more than 33% between FY2009 and FY2010.

In stark contrast to President Obama and other governors whose fiscal records are dogged by credit downgrades, Palin left Alaska with an improved credit rating during and following her tenure as governor. Standard & Poor’s raised Alaska’s credit rating from AA to AA+ in April 2008. Then in 2010, both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s upgraded Alaska to AAA for the first time in the state’s history due to policies enacted by Palin that made the state’s finances more than solvent.
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Jobs

Under Palin’s leadership, Alaska was 2nd in job growth, and 3rd in the change in its unemployment rate, compared to the other states. Alaska also saw a record number of oil jobs in both 2008 and 2009, while natural resource and logging jobs increased 13.7% during Palin’s tenure.

In fact, Palin’s record on jobs compared to the country as a whole was stronger than the President’s and other prominent governors’ during their respective tenures
——-

Business Growth

Alaska was an opportunity society under Palin. Alaska moved up from the 4th most business tax-friendly state to the 3rd most business tax-friendly state during her tenure.

Palin was a firm believer in tax cuts. In addition to lowering unemployment insurance tax rates, she cut business license fees in half, suspended the state motor fuel tax, and signed legislation, allowing Alaska-based businesses the same opportunities as out-of-state businesses. All of this was consistent with her record as Mayor of Wasilla, where she eliminated small business inventory taxes and cut property tax mill levies every year she was in office.
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Energy

Energy issubeteutiful photoses are Palin’s forte, and her record proves it. In 2007, Governor Palin signed ACES—Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share—a net tax on oil profits that was passed in a bipartisan and transparent manner. ACES replaced the corruption-tainted oil tax plan of the previous administration, which was passed in secret and ultimately lead to the federal indictment of several Alaskan state officials and oil company personnel. Furthermore, ACES provided oil companies with incentives to develop. The progressivity of the tax meant producers were protected when oil prices were low, but the interest of the resource owners—the people of Alaska—were appropriately protected as well to achieve a fair return for their resource.

Most importantly, ACES led to jobs, increased development, and a huge surplus for Alaska.

Perhaps Palin’s biggest energy achievement was spearheading the creation of the Alaska natural gas pipeline. After five decades of unsuccessful attempts by Alaskan administrations to bring a gas pipeline project into existence, Palin and her team introduced the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) in March 2007. AGIA passed the Legislature by a vote of 57-1 in May of that year.

Unlike the behind-closed-doors cronyism of past administrations, Palin’s AGIA legislation was conducted out in the open and made use of a genuine free-market competitive bidding process. Palin’s AGIA placed not only Alaska, but also the nation, further on the path toward energy independence.

Palin played hardball with the big oil companies in her state. According to the Alaska state constitution, Alaskans are the resource owners in their state; and it was Palin’s duty as their CEO to get the best deal for Alaskans while at the same time partnering with these oil companies for the mutual benefit of all.
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Ethics Reform and Transparency

Ethics reform was the hallmark of Palin’s governorship. She was swept into office on a reform message in a state with a serious corruption problem. Alaska at the time was undergoing a federal investigation that culminated in the indictment of various corrupt lawmakers. Palin had made a name for herself as an ethics crusader when she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservative Commission and blew the whistle on fellow commissioner and state GOP head Randy Ruedrich for doing party business on state time. This resulted in Ruedrich receiving a $12,000 fine—the largest civil fine for ethics in the state’s history. Alaskans respected the fact that Palin was not afraid of taking on the establishment of her own party.

As governor, Palin fought for and signed sweeping bipartisan ethics legislation, which restricted lobbyists, improved disclosure laws, and improved executive and legislative branch ethics laws. In the face of corruption, she continued to take on her own party when it was necessary. She also increased transparency by releasing her oil tax bill to her constituents 17 days prior to the special legislative session, opening up natural gas pipeline deals to all potential parties, putting the state checkbook online, and not allowing lobbyists in her office.
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Education

Palin forward funded education to allow districts greater flexibility, supported increased vocational training and early education funding, opened up opportunity to Alaskan students to participate in regional medical schools, and increased overall funding for special needs education by 175% (before she herself became the mother of son with special needs). Believing that the best reform was close to home, Palin wisely also chose to monitor rather than participate in national standards for education.
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Health Care

Palin introduced health care transparency legislation that established an Alaska health care information office to give consumers factual information on quality and cost to help them make better-informed health care decisions. Recognizing that health care must be market-and business
driven, rather than restricted by government, Palin proposed repeal of Certificate of Need—a layer of bureaucracy that prevents medical facility development. She established the Alaska Health Strategies Planning Council, reduced Medicaid assessments by 83%, and expanded Alaska’s SeniorCare benefits program for low-income seniors.

Here’s her take on President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night as expressed in her Wednesday USA Today column, with an added bonus of a delicious potshot at the sycophantic press: "It was so hackish, so devoid of any theme or purpose, that it makes one wonder whether part of Obama just wants to see how bad he can be before his cultists in the news media can see it."

"Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wrote Wednesday that America is a nation being bankrupt by a federal government led by "venal politicians" in her response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address.

‘"What is the true state of our union? Though this may sound harsh, I’ll speak the truth here," Palin wrote. "We are a country going bankrupt to fund a bloated, distant, and often corrupt federal government led by venal politicians more concerned with paying off their campaign cronies and consolidating their own power than in preserving the constitutional republic that so many have fought and died for (including our brave men and women in uniform who were barely mentioned last night)."

‘Palin has assailed the "permanent political class" since her landmark speech in Indianola, Iowa in 2011 that introduced that language into the political bloodstream. Director Stephen K. Bannon and Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute have assailed D.C. as a "boomtown" that produces nothing but continues to get wealthier by expanding the size and scope of government.

‘During the State of the Union address on Tuesday, Palin live-tweeted with the "#SOTUGottaBKiddingMe" hashtag, assailing Obama and Washington, D.C.’s permanent political class for their cronyism. After the speech, Palin called out Obama for not honoring slain ex-Navy Seal Chris Kyle or U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens during the address. After attending Kyle’s funeral on Monday, Palin said Obama needed to "pay his respects" to the fallen American hero.

‘"If you missed President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, you didn’t miss much – especially if you watched any of his past four State of the Union addresses," Palin wrote. "We heard the same recycled rhetoric, and we heard his Orwellian declaration that the cornucopia of new federal programs he proposed, as well as his intention to eradicate world poverty, wouldn’t ‘increase our deficit by a single dime.'"

‘Palin also referenced Paul Krugman, "one of President Obama’s economic cheerleaders at the New York Times," who last week was "remarkably candid" when he said "death panels and taxes is how we do this."

‘"This is the long-term forecast for the state of America under Obama’s failed policies: middle class taxes and death panels," Palin wrote."‘

There’s more, but it’s like she is firing with a semi-automatic .50 caliber sniper rifle, and hitting the target every single time she pulls the trigger..

golfmom3

Gov. Palin is starting down the road. JRD1 found this Horowitz strategy pamphlet intended to change the way conservatives politic, and I see his outline in her approach:

"liberal liars"

"it’s going to take quite a lot of “sales taxes” to meet the payments on the ever-increasing multi-trillion dollar debt we’re burying our kids and grandkids under. And with health care costs rising under Obamacare, obviously a lot of care will be rationed and even flat out denied by panels of faceless bureaucrats making life and death decisions for you and your loved ones. This is the long-term forecast for the state of America under Obama’s failed policies: middle class taxes and death panels."

"We are a country going bankrupt to fund a bloated, distant, and often corrupt federal government led by venal politicians more concerned with paying off their campaign cronies and consolidating their own power than in preserving the constitutional republic that so many have fought and died for"

Per Horowitz: "The only way to confront the emotional campaign that Democrats wage in every election is through an equally emotional campaign that puts the aggressors on the defensive; that attacks them in the same moral language, identifying them as the bad guys, the oppressors of women, children, minorities and the middle class, that takes away from them the moral high ground which they now occupy. You can’t confront an emotionally based moral argument with an intellectual analysis. Yet this is basically and almost exclusively what Republicans do.

A Winning Strategy for Republicans

1. Put the aggressors on the defensive.

2. Put their victims — women, minorities, the poor and working Americans -­-­ in front of every argument and every policy in the same way they do.

A number of years ago I bought and read Horowitz’s memoir "Radical Son," in which he described his work with the Black Panthers in Oakland, when he was still a young, idealistic radical leftie, and how he came to the gradual realization that he was their useful liberal idiot.

The last straw came when he recommended to them a personal friend, an accountant, who could keep the Panther’s books. She told Horowitz that she had found some "irregularities" in the accounts and had naively told Huey Newton about them. Of course, Newton and Eldridge Cleaver knew all about the discrepancies because they had been helping themselves to the money.

Shortly thereafter, Horowitz could not get in touch with his friend. Her raped, dead body was later found floating in San Francisco Bay.

Horowitz knows what he is talking about.

lyndaaquarius

He does.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_N7HCPR7JLQP6R33GXP5DO5XKDM 1776er

GM3–

Horowitz is exactly right. He is describing Alinsky Rule No. 13. He is describing effective political polarization.
The practice of polarization goes to human emotions not human rational thinking. It goes to fear and insecurity and ambition and greed.

The numbers are too big. Average people can’t wrap their minds around the numbers. $1 Trillion Federal deficit? Might as well be $1 Gabillion Zillion. Does not register.

Playing with Sandra Fluke’s lady parts and denying women free contraceptives registers. It’s a war on women. It’s an invasion of privacy. It’s a political rape. Only monsters would do that. Don’t trust them. They are trying to take your freedom away. They want to keep you bare foot and pregnant. They don’t want to pay you what you are worth. That registers.

The Democrats are masters at poking, prodding and playing on subliminal fears and insecurities that make no rational sense at all. Pushing Granny over the cliff. Want to put you people back in chains. Bitter bible thumping bigots clinging to their homophobic misogynistic religion and guns. People who want to poison you with foul air and water. People who want to change the climate to drown you in tsunamis. People who want to spill oil all over the Green Earth. People who believe in torture. People who only love rich people. People who keep you down by cheating on their taxes in ways you can’t. People who can afford to pay a little more. Somebody’s getting rich and it’s not you. Race/Class/Gender/Religion. On and on and on.

Carpet bombing.negative ads. Ad hominen attacks until the Big Lie sinks into your brain after about the 500th time you have been exposed to the "eat more popcorn" subliminal effects of the negative and false and scandalous attack ad.

Sarah Palin has developed an acute sensitivity to the fine tuning of the American psyche and it’s political implications.

Why? Because she has been the subject of the negative stuff and has learned first hand the effects of nonsense, fiction based successful polarization efforts of the Left directed at her. The lessons have not been lost on her. Sarah Palin has been on the receiving end. It tends to focus the mind.

So if you exmamine Sarah’s public statements you will see a masterful blend of the rational analyst expounding on the critical real problems and solutions combined with appeals to American values and common sense. She does not shy away from the big stuff that average Americans have real trouble getting their minds around. But she knows how we tick subliminally as well. She addresses both aspects in incredibly effective and efficient ways.

Sarah Palin is a political Rock Star. She is the best retail politician in America. Better than Bill Clinton. Certainly miles better than Hillary. She connects on a human level as well as a wonkish technocrat analytical level. She knows her ground. She defends her ground. She is Undefeated.

Sarah Palin speaks for us. Sarah Palin is one of us. It’s a gift. You either have it or you don’t.

People rally to Sarah Palin not because she has all the technical answers to devilishly difficult national problems. She doesn’t. They rally to her because she connects with people at the level the Democrats and Alinskyites play on and cynically manipulate to seize power. She connects to the American spirit and heart. We trust her. We trust her even when we can’t see the way ahead as clearly as she does. Nobody on the Left possesses that level of public trust. Especially not Barack Hussein Obama.

The problem with the Obamanist approach to polarizing the way to power is that it creates a permanent state of distrust and manufactured hate and suspicion and fear in the divided electorate. Nobody’s moving out of their polarized political corner anytime soon in America. The sides are formed up. Hissing at each other like cats with their backs up.

Obama’s power rests on a slim, perhaps no more than 3% majority of polarized and deliberately made to be terrorized electorate. No healing possible there. No unity possible there. No coming together to solve problems there. No tolerance there. No compromise there.

The only thing left? The only possible governing model? Crush your enemy.

If the Congress won’t ACT I will!

All America is stuck in a bottle like two scorpions with no way out. That is the consequence of the Leftist Marxist governing model. Back the 51% against the 49%. Crush the 49%. No mercy. No compromise. No give. Just take. That is the horrible place to which Barrack Hussein Obama, the Chicago Mob and the LSM have lead us.

That is manifestly not Sarah Palin’s governing model. Don’t get used to it. Sarah Palin is going to disappoint some Conservatives somewhere down the road. She is going to smash the "Crush Your Enemies" Marxist model of governance. She is going to work with all comers to develop common sense solutions to the problems that vex us as a nation.

Sarah Palin is gonna surprise you. The lions are going to lie down with the lambs. And neither the lambs nor the lions are going to be too happy about that at first.

In doing so she is going to unfreeze the political zeitgeist in America. She is going to release the scorpions out of the bottle.

The problem is how do you educate Americans on the wisdom and necessity of abandoning the Marxist Big Nanny Welfare State polarized state of permanent anxiety, insecurity and fear of the future?

That is Sarah Palin’s task and she took a step toward it this week in her response to Obama’s predictable SOTU address. Sarah is on the right side of history. Obama is a relic of a failed socio-philosophical model of governance. He and his Marxist ilk are on the wrong side of history.

Let the truth telling proceed. The truth convicts. And as the American people awaken to the Truth watch the poles of American politics begin to change shape. As Americans see the wisdom of common sense American values the polar pull of the Truth will attract more and more of the electorate to the Truth. Obama’s artificially manufactured pole of fear, hatred. suspicion and revenge will shrink like the snow in the Spring.

CharterOakie

Wow, ’76er. You have written some tremendous comments. This is absolutely fantastic. Your figures of speech communicate the points beautifully.

I see it the same way. She is able to break down the polarization, get beyond the stereotypes and simplistic labels, temper animosities, and get people of good will but different views to work together for common good. That’s exactly what she did as governor and her 80-90% approval ratings affirmed it.

She can do it again on a larger scale.

I am convinced that many influential and powerful people — who perhaps can’t yet show it — admire her and have learned that they can absolutely trust her, and they will support her. She is that kind of leader.

Again, my compliments on an utterly wonderful post.

jerseymark

Great, Great post. The dam breaks when she says "I am running for the office of President of the United States".

In this last of a series from Mr. Lewis’ "Miracles", Mr. Lewis offers a "big picture" view of miracles from the perspective of "The Grand Miracle":

"The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion – an invasion which intends complete conquest and ‘occupation’. The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depends on their relation to the Grand Miracle; all discussion of them in isolation from it is futile.

"The fitness or credibility of the Grand Miracle itself cannot, obviously, be judged by the same standard. And let us admit at once that it is very difficult to find a standard by which it can be judged. If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth – the very thing that the whole story has been about…. It is easier to argue, on historical grounds, that the Incarnation actually occurred than to show, on philosophical grounds, the probability of its occurrence. The historical difficulty of giving for the life, sayings and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation, is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity and (let me add) shrewdness of His moral teaching and the rampant megalomania which must lie behind His theological teaching UNLESS He is indeed God, has never been satisfactorily got over."

The last sentence is extremely important for a proper perspective on the question Jesus asked Peter – "Who do you say that I am?" Many people in this world through the centuries have said of Jesus that He was a great moral teacher, even the best, or that He was our best example of how we should live, or He was a radical revolutionary murdered by the Roman Establishment or even an inspirational social activist – anything BUT God. Mr, Lewis makes a very big deal of this issue of who Jesus was/is in both "Mere Christianity" and "Miracles" saying that there are only two choices offered by Jesus. Either He is God as He said He is or a megalomaniacal lunatic who belonged locked up in a looney bin somewhere. Jesus was quite clear about His identity and left no such option as those referred to above for if He was/is not God then He could not be any of those other choices for He blatantly deceived His many followers just like every cult leader down through history. Therefore, anyone who thinks they can escape the importance and ramifications of the question "Who do you say that I am?" by "giving Him credit" with some great sounding accolade is fooling themselves right into Hell. They think they are being wise and reasonable by "giving Him credit" and they feel good about it but they are simply calling Jesus a liar. When you confront them with the fact that they are calling Jesus a liar, they will usually respond by suggesting that He was just probably a bit deluded in thinking He was God at which point they have changed from calling Jesus a liar to calling Him a lunatic which negates any of the good things they previously said about Him. This will make them extremely uncomfortable and they will walk away but you can drive the point home by telling them that the choice is between Jesus is God or Jesus is a lunatic and they must decide whiich they say that He is.

The point is driven home even more by the fact that none of the many other moral teachers that have graced this planet over the centuries, with whom these folks would lump Jesus ever declared themselves to be God. Lest there be any doubt about whether Jesus did, in fact, declare Himself to be God, this was the whole reason the Jewish Leaders from the High priest on down sought to have Him crucified by the Romans as they automatically judged His statement to be a blasfamy which was punishable by death. So as we can see THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION THAT MUST BE ANSWERED BY EACH PERSON IS "WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS?"

virginiagentleman1

My answer to that most important question Mark? JESUS is MY LORD, MY SAVIOR, and MY SOULS REDEEMER! VG

jerseymark

Praise the Lord for that Brother.

jester2939

Amen!!

daisy_mae

Good morning wonderful ones! Just wanted to let you know I heard on the radio Dr. Ben Carson will be on Hannity Friday night. Hope you have a great day. God bless you, God bless the Governor and her family, God bless America.

Senators may also want to ask about the last paycheck Mr. Lew
received from Citigroup. On January 15, 2009, after Citi had received
taxpayer bailouts of $45 billion in cash, and hundreds of billions more
in loans and guarantees, Mr. Lew received a payment of $944,518. As he
was about to join the Obama Administration, he received this sum for
"salary, payout for vested restricted stock, discretionary cash
compensation for work performed in 2008," according to a disclosure
report he signed in 2010.
Thus some—perhaps most—of this money was a bonus for Mr. Lew’s work
in 2008. Did Mr. Lew feel guilty signing the back of a bonus check of
almost $1 million underwritten by middle-class American taxpayers?

Mr. Lew’s supporters say he didn’t know
much about the mortgage bets that sank Citigroup because he oversaw
things like human resources and technology. But a 2008 Citigroup
organization chart provided by a Senate aide says that as chief
operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments division, Mr.
Lew also oversaw boxes labeled "Finance," "Illiquid Operations" and
"Liquid Operations." Perhaps Mr. Lew can illuminate the meaning of these
terms, but they sound a lot like the business of funding this
mortgage-investment unit that failed in spectacular fashion.

If Jack Lew was seeking loans for this Citi division without a clue
what the loans were funding, he might qualify as Wall Street’s most
reckless banker of 2008. And if he did have a clue and either
dismissed the risks or kept silent about them, what is he doing as the
President’s nominee to run the Treasury?

stevethird

I wonder what the 18 bucks was for?? He probbly charged ‘em for mileage.

Can you say anarchy? We’re once again talking TREASON here BIG TIME in regard to Obama and
his criminal Administration that is a betrayal of the trust of the ICE
and Americans expecting the just laws of the country to be enforced
which the lawless despot in the White House couldn’t care less about to
increase his voter rolls ASAP solely for political gain, and for which
he deserves to be summarily impeached and prosecuted for his high crimes
against the Republic!

Delay the vote? Get a life, GOP in the Senate, for crying out loud.
Hagel is an unmitigated disaster for Defense in that he would be the
final nail in the coffin for Obama’s willful destruction of the defense
of America to please Obama’s allies, READ America’s enemies, who smell
blood in the water as to America’s vulnerability to attack, given the
actions of the traitorous Obama administration which couldn’t care less
about America’s national security in favor in transforming America into a
totalitarian state indistinguishable from that of tyrants that millions
of Americans fought and died to prevent from happening!

The America hating U.N. which promotes tyranny by giving forums to
tyrants is beyond worthless, which makes it indistinguishable from the
sham Obama Administration, as evinced by the Imam Obama’s encouragement
of the pro-jihadist America-hating Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of the
Middle East! Come to think of it, Comrade Obama is proving to be the
biggest tyrant on the world scene of all!

c4pfan

Morning! Happy Valentine’s Day!

c4pfan

I think we should help Sarah with the information that now the Obama administration is also saying death panels and that liberals are liars.

bassman

Scott Brown debuted on Fox. Yawn!

cudaforever

The NEW face of fox, milquetoast wishy-washy analysts instead of the Bold Colors they had with Sarah. Sad !!